How To Control Your Career Narrative: The Vegas Golden Knights Lead By Example

Deryk Engelland #5 of the Vegas Golden Knights following a 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets in Game Five of the Western Conference Final during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on May 20, 2018 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. (Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)

All of us have felt like a misfit in our professional career from time to time. We’ve all lost a job or been told in one way or another that we aren’t good enough. When that happens, we have a clear choice: buy into the other person’s narrative of our lives or write our own?

If you’ve chosen the latter when facing your “misfit” moment, you have to be cheering for the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Knights, an NHL expansion team that didn’t even have a player under contract a year ago, had that choice to make for their inaugural 2017-18 season. The team ultimately was cobbled from a list of players that other teams didn’t care to keep and had to come together and try to figure out a way to win. No one believed they would succeed. Yet the team wrote its own narrative. After a historic season, the Golden Knights won their division with a 51-24-7 record and have cruised through the NHL Playoffs, heading to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Tomas Nosek #92 of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrates his second-period goal against the Winnipeg Jets in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at T-Mobile Arena on May 18, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Even the Golden Knight’s owner, Bill Foley, thought it would take three years to even make the playoffs. He told ESPN at the beginning of the year, “We don’t have high expectations for this year. We just need do well for a couple years, then make the playoffs in three years… We’ll be pretty good in three years and we’ll make a run in five or six.” Sounds like he was trying to be optimistic for an interviewer.

In other words, the Golden Knights aren’t supposed to be in the playoffs this year, much less the Stanley Cup Final.

Yet here they are.

WINNIPEG, MB - MAY 20: Alex Tuch #89 of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal during the first period against the Winnipeg Jets in Game Five of the Western Conference Finals during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Bell MTS Place on May 20, 2018 in Winnipeg, Canada. (Photo by David Lipnowski/Getty Images)

The Golden Knights had to make a choice at the beginning of the season. Collectively, the players and coaches had to choose whether to agree with the prevailing narrative or create their own story based on their talents, drive, and will to win. They chose the latter and even created a new identity for themselves; The Golden Misfits.

“Everybody on this team has something to prove,” Ryan Reaves said. “We call ourselves ‘The Golden Misfits’ for a reason. We’re doing a good job of proving everybody wrong.”

Reaves, the 31-year-old winger from Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a Great example of the new Golden Misfit identity. A thick, 225-pound enforcer, Reaves was traded to the Golden Knights mid-season. Instead of sulking and buying into the castoff identity, Reaves found a way to contribute and make the team better. His coach, Gerard Gallant, said of Reaves, "That's what I liked about him: He's a character guy, he's a leader guy. When he didn't play games, he wasn't sulking." Reaves finally got to be the hero after tipping in the winning goal in Game 5 against the Winnipeg Jets to send his team to the Stanley Cup Final.

LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 16: Head coach Gerard Gallant of the Vegas Golden Knights speaks during a news conference following his team's 4-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets in Game Three of the Western Conference Finals during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at T-Mobile Arena on May 16, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Gallant is the perfect coach for this collection of castoffs. He, too, was fired from his last job as coach of the Florida Panthers. In fact, if you Google his name, the image that comes up most often is of him having to hail a taxi outside an arena in Raleigh, NC after being fired while his team was on the road. He had to find his own way to the airport.

But if you study this season, you’ll see this isn’t a team that just got lucky. Jon Cooper, coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, said, “It’s a success story is what it is. It’s not a Cinderella story.” At the time of this writing, Coach Cooper’s Lightning is battling the Washington Capitals for the right to face Vegas in the Finals. I think he’s saying that many teams have enough talent to enjoy success, but they are held back by negative mindsets, a toxic team culture, the thousand other excuses that lead us down the path of mediocrity.

Watching the Las Vegas Golden Knights succeed should send a chill of encouragement down our spines. It’s message to us all that we can beat the odds IF we don’t use the excuse of the low opinions someone has had of us in our past. If you take nothing else from this story, remember this:

Another’s judgment of your ability is not the final word on your ultimate success.

Can the Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup? They have shown they are ready to play at a high level, and that their mental game is strong. As long as the narrative THEY are writing holds true, that they are not ruled by someone else’s opinion of their chances, then I think they have a real shot at Greatness.

I am a keynote speaker, corporate business leadership coach, 11-time New York Times Best-selling author and longtime associate editor for Sports Illustrated. As a speaker, I have worked with audiences as diverse as Fortune 500 companies, associations and leadership forums o...